She didn’t respond to him. She just kept staring into the fire. Xingyu was a little…disturbed. If he didn’t look too far into it, he might have been able to say that his mother was just lost in thought—that she was sitting there all beautiful and elegant like a painting, and that it would behoove of any gentleman to see such a sight and step away to leave her to herself. But Xingyu knew better. Laoma didn’t get lost in thought, and she wasn’t lost in thought now. She just looked…lost.

“Laoma,” Xingyu said again, touching her shoulder, and she flinched, blinked a few times, and then looked at him.

“Oh. Xingyu. Yes, dear.”

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. How can I help you?” She was already back to her old self, but Xingyu was still a little shaken.

“Where’s Xiao-Xiao?”

“Hm?” Her eyebrows met in the middle, and she craned her neck around, looking for something. “What time is it?”

“About fifteen past three.”

“He hasn’t come back yet?”

Xingyu paused. “He left?”

Laoma was already standing up and moving through the house—toward where Xingyu knew she’d left her cell phone. He hurried after her.

“Laoma? Is something wrong? Do you need me to call him?”

She brushed him off. “He wouldn’t answer you. It needs to be me or your father.”

Xingyu still kept following her. He hovered by her side once she found her phone and dialed in Xiao-Xiao’s number.

“Xiaokai? Where are you?”

A moment of silence. Xingyu couldn’t even hear the sound of his voice through the phone’s speaker pressed to Laoma’s ear, let alone whatever Xiao-Xiao was saying.

“I’ve told you that you need to—” She stopped, sighed. “Just come back.”

Another moment of silence while Laoma listened to Xiao-Xiao’s answer. And then—remarkably, totally out of character—

“Come home, Xiaokai. Please.”

Liu Xingyu’s chest ached.

ON MONDAY, THEY had another check-in. Xingyu didn’t have the courage, when Xiao-Xiao finally slinked into the house at five in the morning after the party, to ask him any questions, or even to offer him that measly attempt at comfort. As soon as he saw Xiao-Xiao, actually, he’d just lost all words—he didn’t just look exhausted this time. He looked like he’d been taken apart and haphazardly put together again. As he moved into the house, Xingyu could do nothing but step aside and wordlessly let him pass, the same words repeating in his head that had been repeating for the last several days: Xiaokai, sixteen, suicide attempt, depression—